


RE:Cycle

by UnwelcomeStorm



Category: Worm - Wildbow
Genre: Alt-Power Taylor, Gen, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 18:29:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9197918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnwelcomeStorm/pseuds/UnwelcomeStorm
Summary: Looking back, there were a lot of moments where maybe, if he'd said something different--done something different--it wouldn't have turned out this way.





	1. Chapter 1

_Got a secret  
Can you keep it?  
Swear this one you'll save  
Better lock it, in your pocket  
Taking this one to the grave  
If I show you then I know you  
Won't tell what I said  
Cause two can keep a secret  
If one of them is dead_  
\-- Secret, by The Pierces  
  
  
  
**  
(1) Re-Acquaint**  
  
  
  
He saw her misery first, a bright and luring thing, from all the way at street level. He stopped mid-sentence when he did, and focused his attention on it, trying to sort out _exactly_ what he was seeing through the cement wall, because if he was noticing it through objects then it was a certain thing indeed. He got the colors sorted as best he could, and bit down on a curse; it was what he hoped it wouldn’t be. Gallant started running, and he tapped at his radio link as he did.  
  
“Aegis, get back over here. 33rd and, uh-- Cuthbert. And get the Console. And fly about halfway up, just in case.”  
  
_“In case of what? Gallant, what are--”_  
  
“In case you need to catch someone.”  
  
The Wards leader dropped anything else he’d meant to say in favor of a simple acknowledgement, and by then Gallant had no more breath to spare to answer anyway. He’d spotted the old office building’s open fire escape and charged inside, taking the steps two at a time until he judged himself level with the misery. The door to the stairwell was still open, but he took care not to slam it as he passed through and into a room full of half-disassembled cubicles. His armored footsteps were loud and easy, so as not to startle. He might not have bothered: as he got closer to the silhouette standing at the broken-open window details in the cloud of colors resolved, became more clear.  
  
She was calm, not frantic, which was both good and bad. The misery was a slowly-boiling thing, all deep hues of of a feeling well established. And when Gallant drew close enough that the girl turned her face towards him, he saw a faint and smoky shimmer that moved in the cloud, not quite superimposed on it. An echo with the same palette. A darkly luring thing, like seeing the beauty in an oil slick.  
  
The girl stared, until he remembered introductions. Though from the look on her face, there didn’t seem a whole lot of point to chatter. “...hey.”  
  
“Hey.”  
  
“You mind if I stay here with you, talk for a bit?”  
  
“It’s a free country,” she said, and turned back to the window. Close enough. Gallant stepped forward, until he stood beside her. She was almost as tall as he was, he noted, and probably not far removed in age. There was a smattering of acne on her chin and one cheek, and she stood with the sort of inherent gangliness that anyone who hadn’t properly grown into their body possessed. “You don’t have to talk me down, if that’s what you’re here for. I’m not jumping. Not today.”  
  
“I’ll still stay and talk, if you want.” She made a wordless hmm noise. Gallant waited.  
  
“...it helps, in a weird way. Doing this, I mean. Like digging a fingernail into a mosquito bite. It hurts more for minute, and then it goes numb. Catharsis.” She fell silent again, and Gallant watched the misery flex and roil a little slower. Aegis spoke quietly over his headset, promising a rapid response team ready, and a suicide hotline worker if he needed it.  
  
“Do you come here often, then?”  
  
“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s the pier. I’m not serious about it, I mean it. I just… need to think about it, some days.” She sighed. “Gallant, right? Is this part of your job?”  
  
“No, it isn’t. I still do it.” He glanced at her again, measured the saturation of her colors. “I’ll do it tomorrow, too, if you need. Or the day after that.”  
  
The girl turned her face again, looking at him with one brow raised in an unspoken question. “You said, ‘not today.’ So, we can meet again some other day. Whatever days you need.”  
  
Gallant knew that look. The hesitation of someone who doesn’t want to stick their hand in a new fire. But there was just a tiny twist of something brighter, so he forged ahead. “Hey-- keep a secret?” And just like that, something twisted darker, hotter. The misery stirred fitfully-- but she nodded, once and slow. So Gallant held out his hand, and after another moment, she took it.  
  
“My name’s Dean. Pleased to meet you.”  
  
“...sure. Taylor.”  
  
* * *  
  
Taylor didn’t call the next day, or the day after that, but eventually she did. She clearly didn’t expect him to show up, but he did. He’d gotten a number of lectures about operational security and personal safety, and a backup team on standby just in case of deception, but he did. They sat on an iron bench in the corner of Rime park, and talked about nothing at all. She hadn’t seen the latest movie; neither had he, actually. She’d read an article in the papers about a fight between the Protectorate and the E88; he had too, but Wards weren’t supposed to be in such fights.  
  
She called again a week or so later, and was just as surprised as the first time when he answered. She was a little less surprised the third time. And so it went. The season turned, for what it was worth in Brockton Bay, as January became March became April. Taylor’s selection of drab and occasionally stained hoodies remained, enduring the passage of time with stubborn threads. Though as she pointed out, Gallant never wore different armor, so he didn’t really have room to talk.  
  
And then, on the fifth visit, Taylor asked:  
  
“What’s it like, being in the Wards?”  
  
He couldn’t tell her everything, and she understood, but he could answer a few things. Did the Wards get along? Did they get paid? Was it a lot of work-- and was it enjoyable work? Gallant thought so, at least, and that seemed an acceptable answer.  
  
On the sixth visit, Dean asked instead: “I know that you’re unhappy. Is there a way that I can help?”  
  
Taylor looked at him, and then back out at the park. Dean waited, giving her time to think, and weigh, and measure. She did that a lot-- took her time to speak. This time it took her five minutes, and Dean was honestly starting to worry. But her colors hadn’t boiled over, just stirred and pushed each other in debate, so he waited.  
  
“...hey. Keep a secret?” There was a ghost of a smile with the question. When Dean nodded, she said, “Okay. Look at my hand.”  
  
He couldn’t see anything special about it. Taylor bit her nails, and the cold air had dried her skin a bit, but the hand resting at her side on the iron slats of the bench was unremarkable. Until she moved the hand, pulled it up to rest on her knee, and her shadow stayed behind. A faint, smoky shimmer stayed with it, a misery not in synch with the rest of her, but made of the same palette.   
  
* * *  
  
They called her ‘Lantern,’ and she always went hooded.  
  
It only became more apt as time went on. Gallant would always wonder if she knew how much.


	2. Chapter 2

  
**(2) Re-Bound**  
  
  
  
There was a building at the edge of the Heights that Dean loved. Not for what it was, but for what it offered him.  
  
He’d hired a locksmith a year ago, on the sly, and gotten a key made for the side door. He’d considered, once or twice, bringing up the idea of buying the block and renovating it to his father, with the goal of funding some new businesses to take the place of whatever had been there before. He gave it up each time, of course. The faded For Lease signs and darkened windows weren’t helping anyone, so maybe it was a bit selfish, but that was human nature and need. So he kept his key and his silence, and in return he got to hoard a tiny wonder.  
  
It had been a beer garden once, he thought, or maybe just a rooftop cafe. Now it was a bare expanse of tile, sheltered on three sides by cement walls, with the fourth looking West. The only bright spots against the grey-and-grey aesthetic were a red cooler, holding a few flannel blankets for colder evenings, and a pair of lawn chairs that looked out of place so far away from a pool. Victoria was there already, her tiara hooked over the open lid of the cooler, and she’d pulled a sweater on over her costume. She waved him over when he appeared in the stairwell.  
  
It had been a good month, because she smiled when he kissed her. She walked back to the cooler--always walked, here--and got a 2-liter of Coke, grinning like it was a secret. Dean knelt and offered a bottle of off-brand rum, like it was a princely gift. A little game they played.  
  
The chairs were cozy and the liquor was warm, and the only colors all around were the dusky city-twilight above and the gold of Victoria’s hair. Just two teenagers, sneaking a drink away from prying eyes, staying out past a curfew that didn’t exist for either of them. This must be what Normal felt like.  
  
* * *  
  
“It’s so stupid. They weren’t even arguing about the same thing. I know they’ll make up sooner or later, but in the meantime it’s just _uugghhhh_.” Victoria sighed, and raked a hand through her hair. Then she poked Dean in the ribs, making him jump. “Sorry, I’m nattering. What’s new on your side?”  
  
“Same old shit, mostly.”  
  
“Mooooostly?” She poked him again, sensing weakness. He batted her hand away from his ticklish ribs, but she snuck past his defenses and poked again.  
  
“Mostly-- gaha, stop!-- at least at home. Work has gotten a bit, uh, tense.”  
  
“Management being petty tense, or Clockblocker being a smartass tense, or…?”  
  
“Bit worse… you really can’t tell anyone, okay?” She nodded, and settled against his chest to listen. “Wards might have a new member. _Might_. It’s kind of becoming a thing.”  
  
“What’s so complicated about it? PRT does this all the time.”  
  
“Interpersonal conflicts,” he hedged. “The new girl knows one of the current team, and they don’t really get along-- and they’re both refusing to be transferred. There’s more to it, I’m sure, but it’s private.”  
  
“And you’re wading into the middle to mediate, aren’t you?” Victoria sighed.  
  
“Got to. I’m worried they’ll come to blows sooner or later.” Or even… no. Shadow Stalker was aggressive, that was undeniable, but she tended to keep her personal life out of her professional one. It was Taylor that worried him. Stalker wore a cape of disgust and disdain when she looked at Lantern, but the other side of that feud held real hate. Enough of it that it had settled, darkened all the colors in her cloud. And there was only so much scheduling that could be done, to keep them separated, if Lantern did manage to join the team.  
  
* * *  
  
She carried her namesake with her. An old oil lantern, salvaged from an attic or a pawn shop, the kind easily lit by a clever mechanism and the light it provided able to be focused by a sliding hood. She refused to give it up, even when the PR department came calling. Aegis took her aside, tried to explain that being uncooperative wasn’t doing her any favors. It didn’t matter if it helped with her power, it was about being a team player.  
  
She compromised with adding a better lighting source into the same frame, something not flammable like oil; Kid Win put it together in a day. He grumbled about it behind closed doors. Gallant wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but Lantern seemed to regard Kid coldly after that. It was uncharitable of her, and Gallant told her so, because if nothing else she wanted honesty. She apologized to the Tinker the next day.  
  
“They’re going to force me out, aren’t they.” Taylor asked, even if the phrasing denied it. She spent a lot of time in the Ward’s Commons, and today Dean found her doing homework on the couch. Arcadia had nearly denied her for her past academic performance, but she’d held her ground. The pile of tests and assignments they’d given her as an entry exam had been a victory more than a punishment. “Or try to. Just make things difficult until I give in, and move to Maine or something.”  
  
He’d seen it happen before, in his family’s company. What isn’t useful gets pruned away. It’s just how business goes, but the Protectorate wasn’t a common business. Dean didn’t think they’d get so bad as to drive Taylor out entirely, since any parahuman is better with them than against them, but there was certainly pressure. Not really something he’d prefer to say aloud, though, so instead he leaned against the back of the couch and asked, “What happened between you, if I may ask?”  
  
Her face twisted with her colors. “Piggot made me sign an NDA. _Her_ too, but I doubt it’ll stop her. Long story short, she’s a big part of why I’m like this.” Taylor declined to clarify which _this_ she meant, which gave Dean a sinking feeling that it might be all of them. “They told me it’d take a few months at the least to _‘investigate my claims.’_ Switched both our schools in the meantime-- and that’s damning, because it means they know what she did. They have to. How could they not?”  
  
She stared down at the half-completed makework in front of her, voice quiet. “How could they not know?”  
  
“Nobody can know everything, Taylor. It’s cold comfort, but it’s true.”  
  
She buried her face in her hands, and said nothing. Her Shade circled back from wherever it had gone, and after the flat black silhouette braced itself, stepped off the wall and into the third dimension. Its hands trailed smoke as it gathered up Taylor’s papers and pencils, and placed them into her backpack. Dean watched, and frowned when the Shade picked up a book as well, and packed it up. If it could lift a textbook then it had to have been out for a while now-- probably close to the time limit. He hadn’t known it could go back to being a shadow without resetting.  
  
Taylor faced the world again, for a certain definition. “I’m going to bed.”  
  
“It’s only five.”  
  
“I don’t care.” She stood, grabbed her lantern and her backpack, and left in the direction of the dorms. The Shade followed close on her heels.  
  
* * *  
  
Dean asked about it, a few days later, when he was assigned to teach her the ins-and-outs of manning the Console. Response codes, and regulations, and the ever-shifting Master/Stranger protocols. It was difficult to parse the mix of shame and resentment the question stirred up in her cloud. There was a streak of blue in there, an odd shade that made him think it had lost its vibrancy to cold sweat.  
  
“That’s-- not it, exactly. The timer doesn’t stop until I dismiss it.” She turned her focus back to work, tuning him out until the blue shivered back beneath the surface. “...keep a secret?”  
  
“If it’s not dangerous.” He had a duty to the team, after all. Taylor considered, and found the stipulation acceptable.  
  
“What’s not useful gets pruned away,” she echoed him, “And… I wanted to see if I would be. That’s all.” Or because she had expected to be. And he couldn’t assure her otherwise, and still be honest.  
  
“You’ll have to tell, sooner or later. It’s important to know what we’re all capable of, so we can work together.”  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“Yes,” he insisted, but didn’t prod any further. Taylor was already the color of bruises. He’d thought it a mercy not to press on them. He thought there’d be plenty of time.  
  
He’d thought, when the report came in that Armsmaster had captured Lung, that it was a sign of things getting better. He’d thought there were lines that everyone knew not to cross.  
  
He still cursed himself for not knowing better.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**(3) Re-Calibrate**  
  
  
She was playing with her lantern again, adjusting the hood back and forth, turning the light inside from a wide dispersion to a tight, narrow beam. From the corner of his eye, Gallant caught Kid Win shoot Lantern an irritated glance, as her light kept changing and drawing his attention away from his work. If Lantern noticed, she ignored it, as he’d expected her to. It was a nervous habit, like biting her nails, and he somewhat doubted she even knew she was doing it. But it was wearing on his own nerves, already thinned from a fight with Victoria, so he turned away from the television and said, “Lantern, please, cut it out. I know you’re nervous, but it’ll be over with soon.”  
  
She paused, gloved fingers twitching on the small handle of the hood. Then she huffed, and slid the lantern mostly closed, so the beam was thin but bright, and set the lantern on the end table next to her. It painted her shadow black upon the far wall, across from the glass viewing-window for the tourists. “Fine. I just don’t see why I have to be here for this. Why not wait until after I‘ve been introduced?”  
  
“Because you’re supposed to be the mysterious one,” Kid Win offered, pausing mid-sentence to make an adjustment to his laser pistol’s innards, “And getting shots of you before your opening will have people talking.”  
  
The side door opened to admit Shadow Stalker, and Lantern’s colors started to boil as the other heroine spotted her on the couch. “Because the PRT has to make up for your crap power with _something_ , so you get to be a tabloid. Move, you’re in my spot.”  
  
Stalker made a beeline for Lantern, and gave her a light tap against the shoulder. Gallant rolled his eyes inside his helmet. It was a stupid power play, and a crude one, and all the more upsetting because it would probably work. “Stalker, enough. She’s your teammate and there’s no such thing as a crap power.”  
  
“There’s probably one in the Merchants somewhere,” she countered, and gave Lantern another light tap. “I’m serious, move. It’s bad enough people are going to try and compare your power to mine, you don’t have to sit next to me.”  
  
“There’s no comparison to be made. And I don’t see your name on this couch.”  
  
“Stalker, just sit down, the tour group will be through any minute.” Perhaps everyone had been having a bad day, because Shadow Stalker wasn’t usually so abrasive. Not outright, anyway, she always pushed and prodded and fronted at the other Wards, but this was becoming too much. “If you’re insistent, we can take this up with Miss Militia later.”  
  
“Are you threatening _me_?” Stalker turned, put her face and her ire towards Gallant. “For being the only one here willing to say what we’re all thinking? She. Shouldn’t. Be. Here. The druggies and nazis aren’t gonna play nice with her just to spare her feelings, and you shouldn’t either. They’re not gonna back off when she gives them one little baby punch and then needs to recharge, or some shit.”  
  
Shadow Stalker turned back towards Lantern, and held her tongue just long enough for the 30-second warning buzzer to clear. “She’s dead weight, and Piggy should have traded her.”  
  
He should have seen this coming, and Gallant cursed himself for being too stressed to recognize it. This was Stalker’s play, not the seating arrangement, and it wasn’t as crude as he’d thought. There were only seconds before a tour group passed by, before they would all have to smile and wave for the cameras, and now Lantern had only three options: let Stalker’s attack go, and hold her composure; lose her composure and appear weak or unbalanced for the inevitable press; or flee, and directly contradict her orders to be here. A gold-green pulse of triumph fluttered through Stalker’s cloud. He was going to have her censured for this, the very moment the cameras were gone.  
  
Lantern ducked her head for a shaky breath, then looked up at her teammate and spoke through clenched teeth. “He let you find the pictures.”  
  
Orange, a shivering thread of alarm. “The hell did you say?”  
  
“He put them in his desk drawer, because he knew you’d look there. Told you one day how much he loved you, the next how worthless you were, so you checked his things to figure out what to get him for his birthday. Find something he was interested in, because if he was happy then everything was easier.” Gallant could hear Shadow Stalker’s breath turn ragged, could hear Lantern’s hiss between her teeth, could hear Kid Win suck in a breath and hold it, horrified. “And he was interested in _you_. You ran straight through the wall.”  
  
A single heartbeat. A dozen footsteps.  
  
Shadow Stalker _screamed_ , a mindless sound of rage, and Gallant saw her whole cloud go pitch with the need to _hurt this thing that hurt me_. She didn’t even need to use her power to cross any distance, she was already right on top of Lantern, with her hands wrapped tight around the girl’s throat. Kid Win was on his feet, shouting and making a grab to pull Stalker away, while Gallant lunged forward to do the same, cycling his power through _sad-calm-quiet-depressed-misery_ , anything to make her stop.  
  
Photographs from the startled tour group made the news within an hour. Stolen security footage within a day. The fallout of Lantern’s debut was the color of bruises.  
  
* * *  
  
It wasn’t testimony, not as Victoria might have defined it, and nor was it an interrogation, as Armsmaster insisted. But the fizzling nerves and clenched jaw of the Brockton Bay Protectorate leader said otherwise. “Gallant. I’ll make this quick. I need to ask again what happened.”  
  
He gave his report, as he had a dozen times already. Armsmaster just nodded. “Consistent. But I need to ask you something else. Your teammates say you’re the closest to Lantern, so I want both your measure of her character and what your power read off her during the incident.”  
  
“Lantern was hurt, and angry, but that’s to be expected. She and Stalker have had problems since the beginning, and--” he swallowed, feeling a lump of failure slide down his throat. “Taylor has… mentioned, somewhat indirectly because of legal issues, that Stalker has tormented her before, in their civilian identities. She implied that her Trigger was a result of this behavior.”  
  
A lot of things seethed beneath Armsmaster’s iron expression, several colors too quick or confused for Gallant to readily identify. “That matter is already under investigation. But, Lantern has never responded in such a fashion, not in testing, and not according to observations of her peers. This was a very sudden, unexpected event, and at the _worst possible time_. Gallant, I need to know: do you think this was intentional?”  
  
Failure sat heavy in Gallant’s stomach. He thought back to the black shadow on the far wall. She had been playing with her lantern, sliding the hood back and forth, until she left it with on the end table, with the light providing her with a silhouette. She’d narrowed it to the tightest setting, and the brighter the light, the darker--and quicker--the Shade. He thought back to an open window several stories up. He pictured two handprint bruises the color of misery.  
  
She’d been playing with her lantern, but it was a nervous habit. Nothing more. Gallant took a breath, and looked at the waiting Armsmaster.  
  
“No,” he lied.


	4. Chapter 4

**(4) Re-Dress**  
  
  
There was something laughable about it, in the worst way. Master/Stranger protocols, for all their intended function, worked best when you knew what you were guarding against, and it seemed like nobody knew Taylor.  
  
Shadow Stalker was easier. Gallant was pulled off the schedule entirely, told to sit in a dark room behind one-way glass, and report on his former teammate’s responses as she was questioned. She cursed, and ranted, and snarled in silence, and when Armsmaster asked Gallant reported that she’d been the same as he’d ever known her. More outspoken, but consistent, so if there was any influence on her it had been there for a long while. The Tinker exhaled as though he wanted to sigh, and Gallant watched the dark red froth along the tense lines of his jaw.  
  
“Sir? I have to ask-- why am I being included on this?”  
  
“Because you’re _here_ ,” was the reply, “and as my own data is apparently flawed, we need something more to hand over when New York sends some Thinkers over here.” Gallant eyed the twisting knot of colors that was Armsmaster, and succumbed to morbid curiosity anyway. The Protectorate hero looked miffed by the question, but answered anyway. “I’ve been developing a lie detector and while it’s mostly had reliable results, this incident has made me aware of a small oversight: as it turns out, what you believe to be true and what is fact are not always the same thing.”  
  
“Oh,” he said, and tried not to think of anything.  
  
“You have a ten-minute recess, then I want you over in observation room B.”  
  
Interrogation room B was a mirror of A, only the sullen teenager sitting inside was markedly more quiet than Sophia. Taylor sat still with her head bowed, hiding her face behind her hair, and Gallant took notes on the familiar whorl of hues that made up her presence. There was more of that cold-sweat blue, and he made note of it as well, but Taylor remained consistent. In demeanor, at least; boxed in and against a wall, her answers changed.  
  
“I didn’t lie about anything. I’m not a Thinker.”  
  
“And yet, you had access to private information-- information that as far as we know, was never written down anywhere.”  
  
“...”  
  
Armsmaster leaned forward somewhat, the table creaking as he put weight upon it as well as his words. “Lantern. Let me clarify something here: this isn’t a school detention, or a temporary inconvenience. This is Level 3 Master/Stranger Containment. This doesn’t end until we know the when, why, and _how_.” Angry people always made Gallant a little sick to his stomach to watch. Red is very liquid, as though it knows it looks like blood.  
  
“...she told me. My shade, I mean. About Sophia.” Taylor’s answer was slow in coming, and it made her twitch with bright fear and a dull, wary orange. “I don’t like to keep her out, because she starts getting strange. Starts talking.”  
  
“The shadow manifested by your parahuman ability, correct? It’s capable of speech?” A nod. “And you have deliberately withheld this information from the PRT and Protectorate up to this point?”  
  
“I didn’t lie about my powers. I failed all the Thinker and Precog tests, remember?”  
  
“Withholding information is still a lie by omission, Lantern. There are severe penalties for this sort of behavior.”  
  
“Punished for doing nothing, sounds about right.” Gallant winced. This could only grow more unpleasant. And it did, for the next few days, until Aegis and Miss Militia called for a meeting of the Wards. Shadow Stalker would not be returning. Lantern would, though under probation. When Miss Militia left, Aegis admitted under needling that the investigation into Shadow Stalker and Lantern had been abruptly concluded. Whatever the result, it had not been in Sophia’s favor.  
  
* * *  
  
Taylor seemed disinclined to answer apologies or questions, when she was finally allowed back in the Wards’ Commons. Her Shade wandered around the room until well-wishers and cautious stares cleared away, leaving her alone on the couch. Dean took up space in the easy chair, and waited.  
  
“I was right, you know.”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“They were fine with sweeping me under the rug, until this happened. Now they can’t, and they’re not sure they want to.” Green trembled along the edges of her cloud; satisfaction. Dean turned away to watch the Shade instead, a familiar palette of darker hues. The Shade trailed wisps as it walked, investigated cushions and posters and a forgotten glass at random. Dean watched, and… frowned.  
  
“It looks different.”  
  
Taylor nodded, the motion interrupted by a yawn. “Yeah… they want me to get used to having her around. So _they_ can get use out of _her_ , I guess. I usually don’t keep her out past a half hour or so, I’ve been told to practice.”  
  
“I’ve seen it at a half hour before, it didn’t look like this.” The misty shimmer of Taylor’s colors were still there, overlaid on the moving shadow, but details were growing clearer. He could see the outline of Lantern’s namesake, clipped to the Shade’s belt just as it was to Taylor’s, see the straps on her boots as it walked. When freshly divorced from the wall, the Shade trailed an inky, scentless smoke-- now there were only a bare few motes in its wake. And if he listened closely… were those footsteps? Soft, distant, muffled ones, like someone walking in bare feet.  
  
Taylor yawned again, and Dean broke his observation of the Shade to glance at her. “You okay?”  
  
“Yeah, just… sleepy. My power tires me out. I hear some capes get migraines, using their power?”  
  
“Thinkers, mostly. Do you?”  
  
“Nah, just tired. I’m not a Thinker, anyway-- they gave me all the tests again, actually. Still failed.”  
  
Dean made a wordless sound without opinion, and went back to watching the Shade. It must have wandered off, as it seemed wont to do, because he couldn’t spot it in the Commons area. He waited, half-expecting the Shade to reappear with a pillow for Taylor, but it never came. “Where’d you send it? ...Taylor?”  
  
A glance at the couch confirmed that any pillows were too late, and the Shade discorporated, as the hooded Ward had leaned back against a cushion and fallen asleep. Dean watched her colors settle and desaturate into dreams and easy breathing. Probably for the best that Lantern wasn’t permitted to patrol, if her power sapped her stamina so quickly. Dean sighed and rubbed at his eyes; a nap sounded pleasant, but he had a patrol with Armsmaster in an hour, and there was no time for idleness. He turned to reach for his helmet, left sitting on the nearest end table, and a black hand and arm pinned his to the armchair. Lantern’s Shade stood close, hands pressed to the hollows of his elbows, blocking him in from leaving the chair.  
  
Just a shadow, but with definition and presence. Her hair spilled out from under her hood, and when she leaned in closer still Dean saw the damp gleam of her eyes rendered in greyscale. **_It makes him so angry_** , the Shade said.  
  
“What?”  
  
**_Three years in development. Fourteen iterations. Countless computer simulations. He did the job perfectly._** The Shade smiled, and Dean saw green flicker darkly at her edges. **_All for that moment he so craved… and all of it washed away in an instant. Forgotten for the sake of children bickering._**  
  
Dean leaned away, pressed his back into the chair, tried to see around the Shade’s hood. Taylor still slept on the couch, the rise and fall of her chest even and deep. “Taylor! Taylor, wake up!”  
  
**_It makes him so angry-- it’s making him desperate. Reckless. Makes him forget himself. A small oversight: what he believes to be true might not be the same as fact._** Was she talking about _Armsmaster_? The Shade leaned in even closer, as though to brush black lips against his ear. Dean kicked at the couch as hard as he could. Taylor woke with a start. The Shade stared at Dean, unsmiling, and retreated. First into smoke, then into a stain on the floor, and finally into nothing as Taylor pulled her power back.  
  
* * *  
  
It was more commonly Kid Win who rode with Armsmaster, when the elder Tinker accompanied a Ward on patrol at all, but Kid thought he was coming down with a cold, and had swapped Console duty with Gallant. Armsmaster was already on his motorcycle and waiting by the time Gallant reached the garage, not a minute late. Gallant hesitated.  
  
“Sir? About Lantern…”  
  
“What?” Armsmaster snapped, the word cracked like a whip. Red frothed over Armsmaster’s shoulders, dripped off his fingers. Gallant swallowed, suddenly nauseous.  
  
“Just wondering if she was training on Console tonight.”  
  
“No. I’ll work her back into the schedule when I have the time.”  
  
There was more he wanted to say, more he wanted to ask, but Gallant just nodded and climbed onto the motorcycle. He checked the seat and handholds for blood, but of course there was none. There were more important things to worry about, anyway, and Dean soon forgot the Shade’s words.  
  
Bakuda started bombing the city the next day.


End file.
